After more than a decade of history with Chile, the Big Time Rush member opens up to CNN Chile about sold-out arenas, re-recording old classics, and balancing fatherhood with life on tour.
After more than a decade of memories with Chile, Carlos PenaVega (36) still feels humbled by the love from Big Time Rush fans (also known as rushers) thousands of miles away.
The first time he and his bandmates Kendall Schmidt (34), Logan Henderson (35) and James Maslow (35) landed in Chilean ground goes all the way back to 2012, at Teen’s Live Festival, alongside The Wanted. A couple of years later, in 2014, the band made its solo debut in Santiago. And after a long wait, they returned in 2023 for two sold-out nights, which marked their most recent visit.
Fun fact: a couple months before their gigs, in 2023, the city of Duluth, Minnesota did something few boy bands ever experience: it officially declared April 4th Big Time Rush Day. For PenaVega, the recognition still feels surreal. “It’s wild. It’s just… It’s weird! What?! Why? Like, okay… Listen, I’m flattered and it’s really cool. But if you think about it, we’re this old boy band, you know? With this old TV show, and people still love it. It’s so cool, but at the same time it’s just… like is this our real life? How is this real?”
When it comes to South America local reception has always been overwhelming as well, so the world’s longest country naturally flashed as an unmissable stop once the South American leg of their In Real Life Worldwide Tour was discussed.“It’s truly amazing,” he says, smiling widely, “every time we go to these places (outside the US), I’m just in awe of how many people show up to these shows, how many people show up to the hotels and are just waiting to take a picture. Or just, you know, give me a high five,” he says, laughing.
He’s fascinated by the love and support fans across all over the Earth have shown Big Time Rush across the years.“We were so removed for so long… it’s been years since we’ve been there, that we don’t realize it until we actually go and see everyone. It’s such a blessing. Beautiful. It’s the music what is bringing everyone together and that’s what keeps us going.”
And as in 2026, they’ll be singing their Nickelodeon TV show classics in front of a Movistar Arena that has already sold-out every single pre-sale ticket for their In Real World Tour gig. The band’s gratitude is fueling these new dates, with a show built as both a concert and a love letter to the fans who grew up with the Nickelodeon series.
That gratitude is what’s fueling the band’s In Real Life Worldwide Tour, a two-hour show built as both a concert and a love letter to the fans who grew up with the Nickelodeon series. With Katelyn Tarver and Stephen Kramer Glickman joining as special guests, the production leans heavily into nostalgia, but also reinvents itself for 2026.
The making-of and later polishing of the set-list, though, “was definitely tricky,” since they wanted to give fans a mind-blowing experience. An unforgettable one, as much as they possibly could.
“It started with every song ever… and that was just impossible,” PenaVega admits. “Because, just from the TV show, we have 40 or 30 songs. So had we done every song ever, it would have been a 5-hour Taylor Swift Eras Tour, and that just was not possible,” he admits. “But we have managed to get it down to 43 songs. Every song from every episode, including the tour songs. Which is crazy!”
And for Carlos, revisiting music he recorded as a teenager has been surreal: “It’s crazy, because all these songs… like, I was 19 when I sang them, right? And some of them… we forgot all the lyrics. Some of them have been gone. So we had to relearn a bunch of stuff, and we’ve kind of arranged it in the show to where there’s like a rock section, with all the rock songs. And there’s like the dance section, where it’s kind of all the dance movements, with the big dance songs. So it flows really well.”
PenaVega, Schmidt, Henderson, and Maslow even committed to three different outfit changes throughout the sections. They wanted to go all in. “The way that it worked out… it just made sense to give new life to the section. Here are six songs, let’s change a look and do this.”
So, is it fair to call it their own Eras Tour? PenaVega laughs before leaning in: “I mean… Listen, it’s a mini Eras Tour. I’ll say that. It’s a 2-hour show. Caitlyn and Steven obviously open, but then we bring them back. Caitlyn comes and sings a song with us. My favorite part of the show is when Stephen comes out. He’s an incredible pianist. He plays piano, he’s amazing. And he comes out and we each get to sing a ballad love song. You know, the slow love songs that we have. So we each do one, and it’s a really fun moment, because we’ve never had, in any of our shows, a moment where we just get to sing alone. Just one person. And we really wanted to give each one of us that moment.”
Beyond nostalgia, BTR is still creating new material. In June 2025, they dropped I Want You Here All The Time, a single that hints at their evolving sound. Is it the equivalent to a new album coming up?
“Listen, we’re all always writing,” he comes clear. “I think what’s really awesome is that we are all so different. I’ve been married almost 12 years now. I have three kids. Life is crazy. I don’t have time to sit in the studio all the time, you know? Logan… Not married, no kids (laughs.) He can be in the studio all day long. So we’re all kind of running at our own pace, but at the end of the day, we all love Big Time Rush. We all love making music.”
The group is also revisiting older material with a fresh lens: “We definitely have some stuff coming up where we’re doing some re-records of old… like old-old songs. Because, you know, 15, 16 years later, we can make things sonically sound a little better. Our voices are better now, too. So, we can give them a nice refresh. So, we’re excited.”
Performing classics live has already reshaped the way fans and the band connect with those songs. “And after doing them on tour, people are really resonating with it. There’s one song called Blow Your Speakers Out, and people love that song. When we recorded that, I was 19, 20 years old. Now I’m 36. So in our heads, we were like, ‘What if we did a revamp of it?’ So we’re currently working on stuff like that. Like, let’s just do like a nice refresh, make them sound like 2025 and re-release those to the fans.”
For Carlos PenaVega, Big Time Rush has always been more than just music. Over the years, it’s become a bridge across generations: parents who once tuned in religiously to Nickelodeon are now bringing their own kids to concerts, creating an audience that stretches from teenagers to entire families. And of course, even his own.
“My kids love the TV show. And they’re eight, six, and four. Love the TV show. They actually ask to watch it all the time, which is so funny to me,” he admits, still amused at the idea that the show he filmed as a teenager now entertains his own children. “So they come on tour and it’s like… they love it. I mean, my daughter and my two sons will be side stage, dancing, having a good time. And I’m singing, and I’m looking over… and they’re ‘Hey!’”
He’s been married to actress Alexa Vega (Spy Kids, Sleepover) since January 4, 2014. The couple, who combined their last names into the family name PenaVega, has often collaborated professionally while raising their young family, balancing careers in music and film with parenthood.
The star also shares how their kids Ocean (born in 2016), Kingston (born in 2019), and Rio (born in 2021) have lived through his dad’s lens.
“Even though I started with Big Time Rush when I was 18 years old, I wasn’t married, I wasn’t even thinking about having kids. And now I have an 8-year-old, 6-year-old, and a 4-year-old who literally are obsessed standing next to the stage watching me perform. It just blows my mind. I mean, it’s crazy. So yeah… we have so many generations of fans. And during COVID, Netflix picked up the TV show. So we had all these new kids who were like, ‘Oh, what’s this? Big Time Rush? Oh, there’s still a band? Oh, this is crazy.’ So, yeah… it’s wild.”
So i’s a full-circle moment for him- from a young actor-turned-singer at 18 with no thoughts of marriage or children, to a father of three watching his kids bounce along to songs written before they were born. And of course, the tour life doesn’t stop for parenting. And though his children sometimes travel with him, overseas trips often mean leaving them behind.
“Well, we just finished the US run and we’re back here. I’m back home, which is so nice, just for a little bit. And yeah, they are with us. On the US tour it’s easy, because we have one bus for the whole family, and they do their homeschooling. But when we do our trips overseas, I go alone, unfortunately. But I’m sure they would love to come (to Chile with me) one day.”
Family is clearly central to everything Carlos and his wife are building, whether in home or on the road. The key, he explains, is the pattern.
“We don’t really change our routine. The only thing that’s different is that we get to sleep in. So we bring a nanny with us, because my wife likes to watch. She’s a fan. She loves watching every single show. So by the time I get to bed, after the show, it’s like 1:00, 1:30 in the morning. She can’t be waking up at 7:00 with the kids. So, we have a nanny on the road that helps us out in the mornings. But other than getting to sleep in, our day is exactly the same. We do school on the road. We go to the gym. We try and do exercise with the kids outside. We go to water parks. We go to parks and we go skating, and it’s like everything that we do here at the house we try and mimic on the road.”
He chuckles at how normal their life feels in contrast to the spectacle of nightly shows. “The only difference is that daddy has to play a show in front of 10.000 people every night, and he gets to sleep in the morning versus at home. We’re up first, you know, before the kids and like doing that. So, we just try and keep it normal. Our kids know that this isn’t normal life. That they’re very lucky that they get to do what they get to do. And I feel like, as long as we keep that reminder there, they’ll be good.”
He recalls one moment in particular, when his kids tried to explain their absence from school.
“I mean, they definitely… Yesterday was their first day of school and they were like, ‘So, why did you miss the first 2 weeks?’ And they were like, ‘My dad’s a pop star and we were on the road!’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!“, he repeats shaking his head. “We can phrase that a little differently.’ But they’re just… you know, they’re living the life out here and we try and give them the best life that they can.”
When asked whether his children have started to understand who their parents really are, not just mom and dad, but cultural figures who shaped the childhoods of millions, he laughs at the thought. “It’s crazy.”
For their kids, that legacy only recently began to click. “This summer, I think, was the big thing. Because Ocean, you know, he’s been part of it. Kingston too, you know, but Rio who’s four, I think this summer seeing her finally go like this… oh this is… I mean, because you know when you’re standing on a stage full of empty seats and they would come out during sound check and the music is playing and we’re singing and they would see the empty seats and then I would bring them outside stage and they would see all the people.”
That shift in perspective was transformative. “I think seeing her realize, ‘Oh my gosh, this is cool’ was super impactful to me. Because my boys… They’re like, ‘awesome.’ But like, daddy’s little girl now thinks that daddy’s awesome. ‘My daddy sings,’ ‘Daddy, sing to me like you sing to them!’ To me, that just makes my heart go…”
The moment has already left its mark: “I think this summer was a really big moment for everybody but for specifically Rio, who now wants to be a… a pop star. Now she wants to sing. So, she’s been performing all summer. She sings her little songs and yeah. Maybe we’ll get to see her on her own stage one day. Listen, Rio Ray PenaVega, like that’s a great name. I love it.”
Merco -monitor de reputación empresarial de referencia en Iberoamérica- elaboró su ranking para Chile sobre la base de 61 mil encuestas a diferentes grupos de interés a nivel nacional y un análisis de 200 indicadores de gestión de las diversas compañías.
